It is known to provide a variety of attachments for power tools such as rotary cutout or cutting tools. It is further known to provide angle attachments for such power tools. Such known attachments do not realize certain advantageous features and/or combinations of features as described herein.
Rotary cutout or cutting tools are hand-held power tools having an electric motor that rotates a cutting tool bit at very high speeds. The motor drives a motor shaft which extends from one end of a motor housing along the central longitudinal axis thereof. A mechanical structure, such as a conventional drill-type chuck or a collet-type system, is mounted on the end of the motor shaft outside of the motor housing, for attaching cutting tool bits and other accessories or attachments to the motor shaft.
The cutting tool bits are configured to form cuts in a workpiece in a direction substantially parallel and perpendicular to the central longitudinal axis (e.g., the axis of rotation) of the bit. In this manner, the cutting tool may be used to remove material from a workpiece by moving the rotating cutting tool bit through the workpiece in a direction perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the bit. Thus, a cutting tool is conventionally operated by grasping the motor housing with one or both hands, and/or grasping a handle attached to the motor housing, turning on the electric motor to begin high speed rotation of the cutting tool bit, plunging the spinning cutting tool bit into a work piece, such as a piece of wood, and then moving the cutting tool bit through the workpiece in a direction perpendicular to the axis of the spiral cutting tool bit by moving the motor housing in a direction parallel to the plane of the workpiece surface while keeping the axis of the motor housing substantially perpendicular to the workpiece surface.
The utility of a cutting tool may be enhanced by attaching accessories other than cutting tool bits to the motor shaft. For example, a cutting wheel or sanding disk might be attached to the cutting tool motor shaft to be driven by the high-speed cutting tool motor. The use of such attachments expand the utility of the cutting tool to various other cutting and sanding operations. However, the utility of such attachments may be limited if they are attached directly to the end of the motor shaft. In such a case, the orientation of the attachment with respect to the motor housing may inhibit effective use of the cutting tool due to limited control and visibility.
Some conventional angle attachments for use with power tools require that a portion of the internal drive mechanism for the angle attachment be removed from the attachment to couple the attachment to a power tool. For example, a shaft having a gear coupled thereto is removed from the angle attachment and coupled to a motor shaft (e.g., using a chuck or collet assembly), after which the shaft and gear are inserted into the attachment to couple the attachment to the power tool. Such an arrangement may result in misalignment of internal components of the attachment (e.g., the gear may not be precisely aligned with another gear in the attachment), which may cause wear or other damage to components of the attachment.
A related difficulty with conventional angle attachments is that precise coupling between the various components is required. For example, slight misalignments between gears or other components may result in inoperability and/or damage to the attachment and/or power tool. Such misalignment may result in part from the act of coupling the attachment to the power tool.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide an attachment or accessory for a cutting tool or other hand-held power tool that allows cutting wheels, sanding disks, grinding wheels, polishing pads, and similar attachments to be coupled to the cutting tool motor in a useful orientation with respect to the cutting tool motor housing. It would also be advantageous to provide an attachment that allows for connection to a power tool without the need to remove internal components of the attachment.